Warning about Dodgey Telstra/Telechoice Billing

chiefbodge on 16/12/2016 - 22:00
Last edited 16/12/2016 - 22:01

Both Telstra / Telechoice (probably other postpaid telstra MNVOs as well).

So my partner went over her allocated 1GB cap on Telechoice so I went looking through the data session records to find that about 300MB was from the previous month, and for the month in question if you take off that data that would make her under.

I looked back and it was commonly happening with both of our accounts - some of the data sessions from the previous month were being added to the next months bill. I remember this happening once years ago when I was on Telstra itself.

This is wrong - a customer expects to be able to fully use their allocated data allowance within the billing cycle. I can't believe that Telstra thinks that it's good enough to bill like this.

Telechoice refunded the excess but I'm still very uncomfortable that Telechoice's (and probably Telstra's) billing systems are wrong and there would probably be thousands of customers with excess usage charges that aren't legitimate.

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Comments

  • garetz on 17/12/2016 - 03:26
    +2

    A billing month doesnt start on the 1st of the month, it starts on the anniversary date of the bill. So if you start paying on the 12th, then data resets on that date each month. They usually pro rata that as well. Or they might have rolling usage, which is rare. IE the system doesnt update immediately, and data carries over to the next month.

    • chiefbodge on 17/12/2016 - 08:36

      I know that a billing month doesn't start at the start of the month….

      What I am saying is that telstra randomly but often adds data sessions that were started and ended in the previous billing cycle into the next billing cycle.

      And it's not just one session, it's sometimes 2 or 3 or 4.

      Lets say my cycle resets on the 5th of every month - I was seeing data sessions from the 3rd sometimes appear in the billing cycle that starts after the 5th. Telechoice acknowledge the error and refunded my partner, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not so much a once off error but more of a bug that happens routinely.

      I assume it's because there are delays in capturing all the usage data so sometimes session logs come in late after bills have been issued and they are just like "eh, good enough to whack it in the next month". But it's not - it's not correctly billing.

      Someone on whirlpool complained about this years ago, and also on telstra's forum and they don't really seem to want to fix it. If a bank was doing this they'd be taken to court..

      In my opinion there should be serious fines for any company that when made aware of a billing issue that would effect other customers doesn't take steps to fix the issue and notify any other customers effected.

      • garetz on 17/12/2016 - 11:32

        Thats because when the data is transferred isnt when their system updates the usage of the account, there is a 2-3 day lead time. There is nothing you can do about that. Thats the way it works with most services. Unless their systems are all live real time updating, there is no way to fix it. Thats the limitation of the technology itself.

        • chiefbodge on 17/12/2016 - 12:38
          -1

          I can't really believe you are defending this.

          Firstly i'm not sure it is a limitation of the technology - they seem to manage OK with prepaid.

          Secondly, ok lets assume that it is a limitation of technology. That's like saying "Our speed cameras sometimes incorrectly detect your speed as being 10 km/h faster than it is, but unfortunately it's a limitation of our technology and it can't be fixed" - that doesn't fly and nor should this.

          They actually have two better options if it is a technological limitation:

          -Drop (don't bill) any usage that comes in for the previous cycle if it comes in after the invoice is generated
          -Retrospectively add the usage to the correct cycle and if it puts the customer over issue an amended invoice.

          If you pay for 1GB a month data you should be able to use all of that data within your cycle without any excess charges - it's pretty basic stuff.

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